Drop of €350,000 in one year makes for attractive buy

THEY made €1 million to €1.5 million during the boom — depending on site size and condition — and one sales asking price even breached €2 million.

Now, what price a detached home in Cork city’s most comfortable of settings, Hettyfield in Douglas? Try €475,000 for size.

A change of selling agent, and a dramatic wielding of the axe to its mid-2008 asking price of €800,000, just might set up Avonmore up for 2009 sale.

The owners of the four-bed, c 1,400 sq ft Avonmore built a new home for themselves alongside, and put the original house — then called 8A — up for sale in an already slumped market in June 2008. With a site size of 85’ deep, and 56’ wide, that equates to just about one twelfth of an acre.

Still looking to sell, they’ve just appointed Dennis Guerin of Frank V Murphy & Co auctioneers who has taken similar brutal price-cut measures on some other recent high end properties to get a result: he’s doing open viewings today, noon to 1.00pm.

So, given that even lesser-rated three-bed Douglas address semis had gone over the €500,000 mark around peak time in 2006, andHettyfield led the pack for Douglas detacheds around the €1 million mark, this could be an attractive option on this suburban strip.

Avonmore needs a full overhaul, and even has its original 1950s steel frame windows in place, painted a wasp-like yellow and red.

It has an attached garage, and so there’s limited extension potential here, but no space at all on the other side bar a passageway and there’s not so much site area that you can squander what’s left out the back.

- Meanwhile, also cut back quite a bit, after a six month sojourn on the market, is the big Victorian semi-d Árd na Rí, up on top of Buxton Hill in Sunday’s Well.

Estate agent Dermot Lynch of James G Coughlan has reduced the AMV from €750,000 to a new autumn level of €550,000.

Elevated with views, south-facing, family-owned, extended with a front sun room and in good overall condition, it has space on three levels, and five bedrooms, with deep bay window to the front.

It has high ceilings, a large main reception, large kitchen/ dining room, and car access behind, and pedestrian access at garden’s end.